Living in St. John’s means that in order to fly one first has to transcend the climate. Newfoundland-Labrador is extremely challenging for even the most determined traveler. A minor breeze of mist will ground the largest airlines while the smallest cigar sized plane will merrily bounce into altitude through the blizzard.
The wait for delayed flights to either arrive or depart creates an excellent window for attending to the brutal details of life. Now is the time to minister to the chores of administration one habitually avoids. It’s the time to make the tough phone calls. The airport is the best place to have any awful conversation, because one can bail with the simple and truthful statement: Oh, I’ve got to dash, the flight is being called. It may not be your specific flight, but seeing as someone’s flight is always being called, this is a ready stand by for a hasty exit. Now is the time to send the rejection slips. Or in my case, read the rejection slips.
Do the breaking up. Get broken up with. Walk out of the debris of your life confident that someone will sweep it up after you leave and it will be like it never happened. In fact, it will be like you never happened, so damn the torpedoes. Airports are like self-cleaning ovens. Except, unlike self-cleaning ovens, airports are great places for scavenging. Forgotten sunglasses. Half empty, but still warm coffee cups. Hair buckles, phones, sometimes travel pillows, or stuffed animals. It’s fun to go the lost & found and say: Excuse me, did anyone turn in….um….by chance…any…you know. It has happened that the attendant helpfully replies: A wallet containing five thousand dollars?
Take the opportunity to weep in public. If done correctly with just the right amount of sorrow, but not straying into hysteria, it often results in you being given a free upgrade.
When people around you are speaking rapidly in a foreign language, stare at them with veiled meaning, as if you understand completely what they are saying and disapprove.
Especially while in the airport: Don’t forget to get on the plane.
Peace and Love, my travelers.
Marilyn Mackay says
I do not have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but airports generate similar changes in my behaviour. How many times do I check my pockets for my passport? How many times do I check my boarding pass for the gate number? How many times to I check my phone to make sure the electronic boarding pass is showing? How many times to I check my briefcase to make sure all my stuff is there and in the right compartments? How many times to I check my boarding pass again to make sure I have arrived at the airport in the correct day? I do not want to be any where near that oven when it turns on its self cleaning cycle and all my bits and pieces are gone!